Saturday, October 15, 2011

Loosening Up With Chimpanzees

CHIMPANZEE! (w/viking helmet)
 8x8 inches, acrylic on canvas, unframed $80.00
Yesterday I was feeling a little stiff and trapped in my ways, I hadn't just pushed paint around in awhile and missed the sensation of blopping colour in places with no finished images in mind. The night before I was out for a pint and just sat and read one of my sketchbooks that I hadn't picked up since May (I usually have two or three of different sizes in circulation so some ideas get lost in the shuffle) I noticed I had a lot of notes about just painting freely, pick an object and paint it, no plan, no series and there was a list of about thirty images to paint, don't plan just get to work.
 I missed that feeling so yesterday I just sat down in the studio and started to paint some chimpanzees, or what began as chimpanzees, then I decided they needed more colour, something unique and asked friends on facebook what kind of hat a chimp would prefer to wear and received about twenty five suggestions. I started with the image above and am very happy with it, I may do one a day for awhile until I feel like I'm using paint properly again, it was a good day and a good lesson for me just to roam around the canvas and add colour.
A.Shay Hahn